• Inactive for Year: 2024/25

• Module Leader(s): Prof. Stella Ghervas
• Lecturer: Professor Rachel Hammersley

• Owning School: History, Classics and Archaeology
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

This is a survey module in intellectual history focusing on the opposition between radical and conservative ideas and texts. It is designed to provide students with an accessible route into studying ideas and their relationship to political action.

As a survey, this module will be organised chronologically, starting with the English Revolution of 1640-1660 and finishing with the Russian Revolution of 1917. To avoid viewing ideas devoid of their historical context, the focus of the lectures will not be on individual thinkers as such, but on key concepts or themes that came to the fore at different points in time. Each lecture will focus on the development, at a particular point in time, of a key radical or conservative concept such as sovereignty, resistance, tradition, counter-revolution or the rights of man. The seminars will then provide an opportunity for the students to dig a little deeper into a particular text or set of texts relating to that week's themes. The module arises out of the Ideas and Beliefs research strand and is directly linked to the vision statement in its focus on the history of radical thought.

Outline Of Syllabus

Indicative Lecture Topics
Parliamentary and Popular Sovereignty
Republicanism
Toleration
Resistance
The Balance of Powers
The Road to Revolution
Tradition and Modernity
Monarchism and Constitutionalism
Reaction
Selective vs Universal Suffrage
Social Contract
The Rights of Man
Anarchism
[Additional topics to be added by the new member of staff.]

Indicative Seminar Topics
Levellers and Diggers
The writings of John Locke
Enlightenment Thinkers
The Counter-Enlightenment
From the Holy Alliance to the Reaction
Politics and Orthodoxy [The Dispute between Joseph de Maistre and Alexander Sturdza]
Philhellenism and the Rise of Public Opinion
Mazzini and the Young Europe
The life and works of Thomas Paine
[Additional topics to be added by the new member of staff.]

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

SEMINARS encourage independent study and promote improvements in oral presentation, interpersonal communication, problem-solving skills, research skills and adaptability.

LECTURES enable students to gain a wider sense of historical argument and debate and how such debates operate, which also allows them to develop comparisons between different historiographical debates.

SURGERY TIME: Staff will make themselves available in their offices for one hour over the course of the module to see students individually on issues concerning them, although we expect this will focus on preparation for assessments.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

1. Work submitted during the delivery of the module forms a means of determining the student’s progress.
2. Summative assessment tests knowledge outcomes and develops skills in research and reading.

Formative exercises may also be set for this module. They will be un-assessed, but will be discussed in the seminars and will feed into the assessed work.

All Erasmus students at Newcastle University are expected to do the same assessment as students registered for a degree.
Study-abroad, non-Erasmus exchange and Loyola students spending semester 1 only are required to finish their assessment while in Newcastle. This will take the form of an alternative assessment, as outlined in the formats below:

Modules assessed by Coursework and Exam:
The normal alternative form of assessment for all semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be one essay in addition to the other coursework assessment (the length of the essay should be adjusted in order to comply with the assessment tariff); to be submitted no later than 12pm Friday of week 12. The essays should be set so as to assure coverage of the course content to date.

Modules assessed by Exam only:
The normal alternative form of assessment for all semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be two 2,000 word written exercises; to be submitted no later than 12pm Friday of week 12. The essays should be set so as to assure coverage of the course content to date.

Modules assessed by Coursework only:
All semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be expected to complete the standard assessment for the module; to be submitted no later than 12pm Friday of week 12. The essays should be set so as to assure coverage of the course content to date.

Study-abroad, non-Erasmus exchange and Loyola students spending the whole academic year or semester 2 are required to complete the standard assessment as set out in the MOF under all circumstances.

Reading Lists

• HIS2302's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• HIS2302's Timetable